'Scandal' Creator Shonda Rhimes Explains Why She Felt Insulted by ABC During Season One

Shonda Rhimes is one of the most powerful producers working in television today, but when she pitched Scandal to ABC, the network didn’t seem to have full confidence in the show.

Shonda at the time had a huge hit on ABC with Grey’s Anatomy, but the network only gave Scandal a seven-episode first season instead of a full-season order.

“As somebody who had made a gigantic hit for a network, a hit that 14 seasons later, it is still a hit, to be given only seven episodes of a show that I made was a problem… To me it spoke to a lack of faith in the idea that a black woman could be the lead of a television show. And I found that to be insulting,” Shonda shared in a new interview with BuzzFeed.

Scandal will be coming to a close TONIGHT (April 19) at 10/9c. Make sure to watch the series finale live!

In other Shonda news, she is a big fan of the Apple Watch and wore the sleek accessory alongside Kerry Washington in a new Instagram photo that she posted this week.

Shonda Rhimes, just calm down.
Greg Daniels and Michael Schur gave the Office to NBC, and they had only 6 episodes for the first season of Parks and Recreation.
So stop with the all discrimination thing. Sometimes, it’s just business.

plez

Now ABC green lights anything. Including the Shakespeare show in which the scripts were not ready for prime time. The fire station show that is at the bottom of that type shows on tv. I think ABC is actually lucky she accepted the Netflix offer.

mafragias

ungrateful I would say .. she slaps the race card everywhere and it is not meaningful any more.

tom

Somebody listen to this fat liberal, not me.

ali

shonda needs to sit tf down. this has nothing to do with race and everything to do with her giant fucking ego. she created ONE successful show that doesn’t automatically mean everything she comes out with is gonna be as good. and considering the shit show that greys has become she needs to tone down her ego before she becomes as much of an outcast as heigl.